This invention pertains to global information networks, currently referred to as internet or internet systems, and in particular, to such a system for providing a comprehensive global information network broadcasting system and the methods of implementing the same using satellite links to overcome the limitations inherent in current distribution and caching systems.
The explosion of the use of internet and other similar systems has created a series of problems that have become very difficult to overcome. A definition of this technology would include any IP network or internet, public or private, or any group of computers connected together and which includes the current system referred to as the internet. The problems are caused by the architecture of the system. The amount of raw data that is flowing on the internet is growing at a rate which cannot be sustained. One of the main problems is an increase in the number of times that the network is being called upon to move the exact same data sets to multiple users. The use of caches to reduce the number of identical items which are being passed through the internet has been implemented with some success in the past, but it is hampered by the fact that the ideal location for caches, at the edge of the network infrastructure as close as possible to the end users of the caches, presents the largest communications and coordination challenges. Caching at the end of the network, using many small caches at the network edges rather than a few large central caches at the center of the network, is complicated by the fact that the small caches then have a limited cache community size meaning that there are few users using any one cache, and so it is not able mathematically to achieve a high hit rate that is expressed in terms of the number of hits encountered in the use of the cache per 100 requests for information, because of the dependence of the hit rate upon the number of users of the cache, or members of the cache community.
The infrastructure of the current point to point system is restricted to the level of general broadcasting that can be accomplished. As the internet was established, the vast majority of all network traffic was point to point in nature. Currently, the broadcast data on the network has taken over in terms of volume of traffic, but the network continues to have a point to point architecture which is physically unable to do broadcast and will never be able to do real broadcast. The result is that the internet is choking itself with replicated data, moving thousands of copies of the same data around at any given moment in time. The major difference now and when the network originated is the size of the transmission lines which are able to move more data, only it is using the same basic architecture as was found in the original system. Another factor is that most of the data on the internet never gets accessed. Only a very small proportion of the overall material is getting a great majority of the inquiries or "hits" on the system.
There have been a number of attempts to improve the system. Acquiring larger and faster pieces or equipment or storing information in larger local caches is one way of approaching the problem. This can provide a faster response time, at least in the short term. The availability of larger and larger disc storage units have helped in this regard. Also, a number of United States Patents describe attempts to improve speed and storage capacity of interactive networks through a number of different methods--those patents include U.S. Pat. No. 5,442,771 issued to Robert Filepp et al for a "Method For Storing Data In A Interactive Computer Network" and the Patent issued to Ashar Aziz, U.S. Pat. No. 5,588,060 for a "Method and Apparatus For A Key Management Scheme For Internet Protocols".
What is necessary to achieve real improvement in the system is a caching system which will improve the ability of the cache system to obtain high rates of being accessed. This can be accomplished by a combination of system designs that measure the number of access requests for information or data that were not available on the local caches that are known as "misses". The system then examines the miss data from some or all of the local sites and determine which pieces are of sufficient interest to the internet community. The second piece necessary to improve the operation of the internet is the broadcast system which takes the information or data that has been determined to be of sufficient interest and broadcast that information and data to all the local cache systems. This action will relieve the network of a vast amount of replicated data and information which will open up the entire internet system.
It should be noted that while two basic capabilities are being used here, caching systems and satellite one-way broadcast, the two methods, when used as described herein, solve each others most serious and pressing problems allowing the two to blend into a single unique solution to the problems described herein. For the problem of multiple identical data elements traversing the internet, caching represents a good solution but because of the issue of small cache community sizes not providing high hit rates, caching is limited in its application. Satellite one-way broadcasting addresses this problem by, when combined with the data evaluation and selection that is described in use in herein, solves this problem by aggregating cache community elements from all clients into one single cache community and thus allowing high hit rates to be achieved. The use of satellite communications to provide a true broadcast mechanism in the internet is addressed by satellite communications which allows a single signal to be sent up to a satellite and the resulting signal to be sent down to large geographic areas, such that only a few satellites can achieve nearly global coverage of the planet earth, but the fact that all users must want to use the broadcast information at exactly the same time in the entire geographic area limits its functionality, but the nature of caches, such that they accept information and then store it for a time so that it can be used at times other than the exact time that it is broadcast, so that users do not need to be accessing it at exactly the same time, solves the major difficulty with satellite one-way broadcast.
It is the object of this invention to teach a method for combining the capabilities of satellite communications and caching servers to overcome the disadvantages of each and, at the same time, improve the levels of hit rate that can be achieved by caching servers thereby saving bandwidth and other valuable resources within the internet and other data network which can use these technologies. It is another object of this invention to construct a selection system which uses one-way satellite communications in order to build a true broadcast capability as an addition to the existing point to point internet network, and to use this broadcast capability to aggregate the cache community size, thus increasing the hit rates of caches on all caches which are connected to our network without regard to a number of members of the individual cache server cache community size.
What is needed is a complete comprehensive internet broadcasting system that will use a caching system that is positioned as close as possible to the end user while still being part of the shared infrastructure, because a cache at the end users location can only serve that end user and it is desirable and necessary for efficient and effective use that the cache server be shared by multiple users which will require less data and information to transit across the point to point network. What is also needed is a complete comprehensive internet broadcasting system which will overlay a capability on the existing internet that will allow a real broadcast so that the data or information can be transmitted once and received at all local caching systems.
Clearly, it is desirable for a system of this type to be very adaptable. At the same time, the system should be easy to install and be available to all customers and internet service providers. It is the object of this invention to teach a comprehensive global information network broadcasting system which overcomes the limitations and disadvantages, previously mentioned limitations of existing global information network delivery systems. It is also the object of this invention to teach a method of implementing a comprehensive global information network broadcasting system which overcomes the limitations and disadvantages, previously mentioned of existing global information network delivery systems.